Google just launched earlier this week the new google mobile app with voice search. Now, we always went extatic in this blog, whenever a new web-based app with text-to-voice or voice-to-text features would come around. We all remember the twitterfone and the cinch blogtalkradio concepts and we're still thinking on how huge their impact will be in the info-included community.

It's been over a year since Tim O'Reilly, the great web2.0 visionary and O'Reilly media books founder, noted that google was actually harvesting and harnessing precious voice-recognition data from their Goog-411 phone search. It's also been a year since Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google, warned that 2008 was all about "mobile, mobile, mobile". Well, all those signs were foretelling the biggest thing I've seen ever since google reader and twitter came along: voice-search in your mobile web-able phone, voice-search in your iphone that is. Frankly, if anyone was doubting between getting a blackberry, a nokia or an iphone for christmas, just go and get an iphone, really. Or maybe an Android device, if you like to take chances.

But enough, here's my quick review:

Voice searching is lightning fast like 1-2-3. One, slide and tap on the google mobile app icon from your iphone launcher. Two, raise your phone near your ear, wait for the sound signal and voice your query: "lolcats". Three, wait a few seconds, get the results, tap on the image tab and be amazed with those cute furry cats. PERFECT!!



More below, you get a full screenshot tour of the voice-search experience! On the left-panel, you can see how the goog mobile app keeps a quick list of your past frequent queries for a quick tap; otherwise, voice and text searching are easily accessible. On the middle-panel, you can also quickly access to all your other google services (Google earth too? Yup, google earth too). On the right panel, you can see how voice search is optional and how you can add your google domain, in case you have one.



On the triptic below you get a 1-2-3 a-few-seconds experience. One, talk. Two, wait. Three, done. It should take in all, oh, about less than 7 seconds.



The next triptic below shows you the type of instant results you might expect. The green text string is google's voice-to-text resulting query. Below you can see the results. Note that you get a one-tap refinement if you're looking for images, local search or news. Easy. Pretty slick, don't you think?



The texting search is also top-notch, while google suggests and provides with different kind of contextual search related to your iphone contacts (synced with gmail), to your location on the map, or simply to regular search. Here's a contact search from my over 500 contacts for a quick call or email.



And below, here's the local search experience for the nearest new pizza place in photos. Note how in the middle-panel google suggests me with relevant keywords for my search, thus saving me my precious thumb-typing energy:




Even though mobile search on the iphone is really like riding a rolls-royce, there do are some relevant details that can be improved:
1 - Voice search does not relates with the text search contextual results, thus I cannot call for "Johnny" from my contacts, or do something like a "Call Johnny", or even a "Find Johnny".
2 - While searching for pizza near lisbon, or for the weather in lisbon, I must explicitly call for "pizza lisbon" or "weather lisbon". That's dumb, the google app should implicitly provide me first hand with pizza within my current location whenever I voice "pizza", or "weather", respectively.

So, the google mobile app is GREAT, it's game-changing, it's disruptive, it's clean, it's slick, it just works, even my mother or my 3 year-old nephew will be able to use it, and it's going to set the new standard of mobile search. Mobile searching is going to be even more contextual and relevant relative to who I am and where I am, because it has close access to my most personal stuff like my contacts, my recent phone-call history and my present location. The next step could be ... where my friends are? IMO, the next big thing coming soon, will be the pocket-pc/phone ubiquitous experience. Google, Apple... thank you.